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Holgate is highly regarded for both modernist figural and landscape works. After moving to Morin Heights in the Laurentian region of Quebec in 1946, the artist naturally gravitated more firmly toward the breathtaking nature that surrounded him. “Autumn Leaves” dates to 1955, a time when Holgate was breaking off all contact with the Montreal art scene in order to embrace an isolated life in the country. Dennis Reid writes that “years of solitary communion with the familiar country around his home brought him to a point of easy intimacy with his subject.” In “Autumn Leaves,” the warm light of an autumn day permeates the canvas, accentuating Holgate's bold and evenly-toned use of colour in the foliage. The artist was particularly interested in the periods of rapid change of the Canadian landscape between seasons, such as melting snow or the autumn foliage. Holgate illustrates this phenomenon in Autumn Leaves, demonstrated in the simultaneous presence of bare branches, bright red maple trees, and leaves that are still green. Reid describes the artist's Laurentian works as “among the most sensual of his works, they reveal across every inch of their surfaces the long hours of concentration that have brought to them the gentle glow of life.”

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Edwin Headley Holgate(1892 - 1977) Group of Seven, RCA

Edwin Holgate was born in Allandale, Ontario. Holgate began his art education at the Art Association of Montreal studying under William Brymner who was also A.Y. Jackson's teacher. In 1920, some of the Brymner graduates found a large building on Beaver Hall Hill in Montreal that could serve as a number of studios. Over the years Holgate continued to be involved with the Beaver Hall Hill group. The artist continued his studies in Paris, returning to Canada at the outbreak of World War I. After the War, the artist returned to Paris with his new bride and remained there until 1922 when they returned to Montreal. Having studied figure painting in France, Holgate began a series of nudes in northern landscapes. Holgate was instrumental in the founding of the Canadian Society of Graphic Artists in 1925 and it was as a graphic artist that he first began to attract wide attention. Asked to join the Group in 1930, Holgate had by then established a reputation for his figure paintings and West Coast and Laurentian landscapes.

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